The fight for Dalieh, one of Beirut’s last public shores

The poster above features an aerial shot of Dalieh, the little known big brother of the famed Raouche Rocks, just left of it.

The poster reads roughly: “Get your construction site off of our Raouche” and was a produced by a group of architects, urbanists and activists trying to save this space, known as the Civil Campaign to Protect Dalieh.

The rocky Dalieh peninsula has been a public watering hole for decades…

The campaign has released some great vintage photos of people using the space:

On Sunday (tomorrow) at 3PM activists are holding a press conference to discuss their plans to oppose the project. You can join the event page here and show support by showing up. (Stay tuned to the page for upcoming events as well.)

You can also watch a talk by one of the organizers Abir Saksouk-Sasso at AUB this week. She looks at how the property was controversially transformed through various acts of legislation from a protected area to an area for development. And how a company affiliated with former prime minister Hariri has taken control of the space:

8 COMMENTS

I actually did take a boat ride yesterday but I didn’t smell anything. In fact for the hundreds of people using the space every weekend there seemed to be relatively little garbage. Of course no public space would be free from garbage if there was not a system in place to pick it up or at least dispose of it. Why wouldn’t there be a municipal service to do that?

[…] on the plot of land with eviction and the site was fenced off. This led to a public outcry and a campaign to remove the fences and make the site open to the public permanently. More recently, the Ministry […]

[…] the Lebanese have lost their public beaches . More recently, the Dalieh beach is soon to be a private property, a luxury destination they say (Fuck them!) a destination that is now fenced in an attempt, […]

[…] in Lebanon has generated an ongoing public outcry, in the form of protests, letters to officials, discussions, and media mobilization. We are writing today to alert you to the disturbing facts behind the […]